Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)

This motion is necessary, urgent and overdue and I thank the Social Democrats for bringing it forward. People are carrying the cost of a crisis they have nothing to do with. We can continuously talk about taking measures to deal with rising costs, and the Social Democrats outlined actions relating to it. Change the legislation and take action to bring about the necessary structural changes or we can go on forever every single year talking about the marginalised and refusing to address the question that the economic model has marginalised people and not the other way around. Everybody from Barnardos to Social Justice Ireland to the CSO have given us figures and they can all be quoted here today but it is those on the lowest incomes who are always most affected by the inequality in society, not us standing in our feet here with good salaries and not anybody else on a good salary. It affects those whom the system has disempowered and disabled and who are not allowed to participate because they are struggling on a daily basis to pay for bread, milk or butter; to pay rent that keeps rising; and wondering where their mortgage repayments are going to come from. We continuously go on with the same economic model. I am not here to preach. I am here as a practical woman. I am here as someone who has the privilege of living and working in different backgrounds. I am sick, sore and tired of talking about the marginalised as if they are inevitable when they are a direct consequence of the economic model we have as is our housing crisis.

We have here a very practical motion that asks us to do a number of things to bring transparency and accountability. It proposes changing legislation. What sticks out in the motion is the reference to a letter sent by the Agri-Food Regulator to the Minister stating what it needed. The reply from the Minister of State has utterly ignored that. There are practical steps that can be taken and absolutely nothing has been given in relation to them. The regulator sent a letter saying there was a gap on the ground and it could not function effectively. It wrote months ago and nothing has happened.

We can look at the figures. Low-income households are disproportionately affected because, quite clearly, they use a greater amount of their income on necessities. I think I have gone over time so I will finish.

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